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Early Greek philosophy — John Burnet

Early Greek philosophy

John Burnet

  • Essays
  • Book language: English
  • 392 pages

"Early Greek Philosophy" by John Burnet is a collection of essays on the pre-Socratic thinkers. It follows their attempts to explain nature, the cosmos, and being, drawing on surviving fragments and testimonies. It is worth listening to as an accessible introduction to the beginnings of Western philosophical thought.

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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).

Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes have been renumbered consecutively and are collected at the end of each chapter. They have been linked to their references. References to notes in the index and elsewhere have been changed to reflect the revised numbers.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

EARLY

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

BY

JOHN BURNET, M.A., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNITED COLLEGE OF ST. SALVATOR

AND ST. LEONARD, ST. ANDREWS

Περὶ μὲν τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐσκόπουν, τὰ δ’ ὄντα ὑπέλαβον εἶναι τὰ αἰσθητὰ μόνον.—AǡƗǪǵLjǵƯŧ.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1908
First Edition published April 1892.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It has been no easy task to revise this volume in such a way as to make it more worthy of the favour with which it has been received.

Most of it has had to be rewritten in the light of certain discoveries made since the publication of the first edition, above all, that of the extracts from Menon’s Ἰατρικά, which have furnished, as I believe, a clue to the history of Pythagoreanism. I trust that all other obligations are duly acknowledged in the proper place.

It did not seem worth while to eliminate all traces of a certain youthful assurance which marked the first edition. I should not write now as I wrote at the age of twenty-five; but I still feel that the main contentions of the book were sound, so I have not tried to amend the style. The references to Zeller and “Ritter and Preller” are adapted throughout to the latest editions. The Aristotelian commentators are referred to by the pages and verses of the Berlin Academy edition, and

Stobaeus by those of Wachsmuth.

J. B.

Sǵ. AƿŠǡŧ΅Ǫ, 1908.

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Contents

  1. EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY
  2. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
  3. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. INTRODUCTION
  6. CHAPTER I THE MILESIAN SCHOOL
  7. CHAPTER II SCIENCE AND RELIGION
  8. CHAPTER III HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS
  9. CHAPTER IV PARMENIDES OF ELEA
  10. CHAPTER V EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS
  11. CHAPTER VI ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI
  12. CHAPTER VII THE PYTHAGOREANS
  13. CHAPTER VIII THE YOUNGER ELEATICS
  14. CHAPTER IX LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS
  15. CHAPTER X ECLECTICISM AND REACTION
  16. APPENDIX THE SOURCES
  17. INDEXES
  18. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

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